


A Little Broken—The Crayon Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6977299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are all a little broken.  But the last time I checked, broken crayons still color the same.”  Takes place during season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Broken—The Crayon Job

**Author's Note:**

> Oh geez, quit looking at quotes on Facebook! My name for posting fic comes from Xander's speech at the end of season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's trying to get Willow to stop destroying the world by using his words. That's his only super power. He talks about crayons broken. Go watch the episode. It's a good one. Then I saw this quote this morning. So yes, all the team are broken, in some way. Nate is probably the most broken of all. So ready and enjoy! Parker would totally do this.

Takes place during season three.

“We are all a little broken.  But the last time I checked, broken crayons still color the same.”

A Little Broken—The Crayon Job

Nate didn’t understand why, but there it was.  Another broken crayon.  This one he found on the dining room table.  Others he had found in the kitchen, next to his coffee; one was found in his bathroom next to his toothbrush; another one was sitting next to Hardison’s keyboard; the last one was found next to his shoes he had taken off after stumbling home from drinking too much in the bar downstairs. 

All different colors, different breaks, different times, different places.  He just didn’t understand the meaning of it.  It was always one piece.  It had to mean something.  One of his team was attempting to make a point. He mulled it over for a few days, piling the crayons onto his desk in front of him.  What was the metaphor?  There had to be one.

Over the next few days, weeks, they kept appearing.  He now had a nice little collection of broken crayons.  None of them appeared in the same place, but one always appeared every day.  He couldn’t ask Hardison to set up a camera to catch whoever was doing this.  It could be him for all Nate knew.

Sophie kept looking at him like it was strange he had a cup full of crayons on his desk.  Hardison picked them up once, scowled his way, and left them alone.  Eliot shook his head, eyebrows shooting up, like he was asking Nate what the hell was going on.  Nate didn’t have an answer for him.  Parker was the only one who didn’t question the ever growing pile on his desk.  Could she be the culprit?

“Is there something you want to tell me, Nate?” Sophie asked one day, the others occupied with their tasks for the con.

He leaned back in his chair, pointing to the crayons.  “It’s a puzzle.”

“Puzzle?”

“I can’t solve it.”

“Maybe you’re not supposed to.”

“You didn’t…”

“No.  Although I’m starting to see why.”

“Care to clue me in?”

Sophie moved closer to him, bending down to whisper in his ear.  If it was meant as a distraction, then it was working.  He tried not to shiver as her breath hit his ear, face warming up because she was so close.

“Oh, I think not.”

Dammit, Sophie, he thought.  He just wasn’t getting it.

Slowly he turned his head, her face mere inches from his.  He was caught up in her spell. Not like it hadn’t happened before.  He didn’t have enough digits to count the number of times Sophie had been this close to him and had never given in.  It wasn’t to be because Hardison walked into the room, breaking the spell that Sophie had cast over him. 

 

Later on, as he sat and stared at the crayons a bit more, Hardison clicked away at his keyboard, pulling up information about the next con on the screens in front of him.  Nate often sat and watched from a distance as Hardison prepared the next briefing.  He always tried to not comment as the hacker worked his magic.

“Is there a problem, Nate?”

“Oh, no.  Not at all.”

“You’re staring.”

Yes, he was staring. It had nothing to do with the latest mark.  Those damn crayons were just baffling.

“Oh, sorry.  Just thinking.”

“Occupational hazard.  Wanna share?”

“No, I’ll figure it out.”

Hardison shook his head, looking back to the screens as they scrolled their information much faster than Nate could follow.  Man must be a speed reader, Nate thought.  He couldn’t follow along at all unless Hardison made it clear what they were seeing.

 

The next day, Nate found another crayon sitting directly next to the pile forming on the large cup on his desk.  He was sure it hadn’t been there the night before.  It was early, much too early for him to be up and about.  He hadn’t had much to drink the night before.  A clear head was needed for this next con to take place.  Slowly he moved the addition to his hoard.  He watched as it rolled over and over, name of the color obliterated by being torn in two.

“Hey,” Eliot said as he entered the door.  “You been up all night?”

Eliot was wary sometimes when Nate was up as the sun rose.  Several times, when Nate had a bender, Eliot was there to see the outcome.  It was never pretty.

“Couldn’t sleep anymore.”

“Oh.  There something you want to discuss?”

“No.  I got it.”

“Sure you do.”

Eliot made his way into the kitchen, the sound of the refrigerator opening, pans being moved here and there.   Nate never understood why Eliot had to cook in his kitchen.  The man had his own place to live. 

“It’s gonna be hard to get Sophie in here early today.”

“She’ll be here,” Nate answered, watching as Eliot came forward, cloth draped over his shoulder.

“This about the con?”

Nate shook his head, not realizing that Eliot asked him a question.

“What?”

“Why you’re staring?”

“Oh, no.  Just thinking.”

“Yeah.  What you do best, most of the time.”

Eliot was probably right.  Thinking just got you into trouble.  Thinking made him a drunk, made him fail too much, made him mean, made him lose control way too often.  So yes, he thought too much about everything.  He would go into his head sometimes, making it very difficult to come out.  The drinking helped dull the thinking, the pain that sometimes radiated out, making him fall over it hurt so much.  So yes, thinking was dangerous to a man like him.

“Don’t think too hard,” Eliot said as he made his way back into the kitchen.

Over the next few days, he found more crayons until the cup on his desk started overflowing.  Maybe he’d find another cup to place the ones that kept falling out.  Or maybe the person leaving them would stop once he or she realized that he had run out of room.  But no, they kept appearing when he least expected it.

 

Late one night, after finishing off the last con, which had not gone well, Nate sat at his desk, spinning the latest crayon on its side.  Sophie was angry with him that he had taken so many chances.  Eliot was nursing a sore shoulder, courtesy of the mark’s goons.  Hardison had a particularly difficult job scrubbing this job because of what had happened.  Parker had disappeared just after they had finished, face blank.  She had taken the brunt of his misjudgment.  It had all worked out in the end, but Parker was the one that suffered the most on this one.  It had never been his intention to put her in any danger.  His plan C had turned into plan M in an instant.  Luckily Hardison didn’t die in this plan M.

“I don’t get it,” Nate said, noticing a slight movement at the other end of the room.

The movement stopped abruptly, the person cast in shadow.

Nate picked up his drink, slowly swallowing the contents as he looked up at the shadow once again.  She moved into the light that was shining from outside, the rest of the room dark except for his desk lamp.

“What don’t you get?”

“These.  Why?”

“You think too much.”

“A given.  Now why?”

Parker moved into the light, hair like a halo around her face. 

“You scare me sometimes.”

Nate’s eyes widened at her confession. He scared her how?  Parker had never let on that he was doing something wrong.  Well, that one time when she told him she wanted him back instead of what he’d become when Sophie left, but she never said she was scared of him.

“If I’ve done anything, Parker.”

“No, not that kind of scared.  I’m scared for you.  Not because of you.”

“Oh.  Still confused.”

Parker walked toward him, a bag of crayons in her hand. All looked to be broken. It looked like she had a hundred or more still to place around so he could find them.

“I just look at all I’ve gained.  Friends, a family, a place to be.  We’ve all gained that in the past few years.  I just think sometimes you don’t get it.”

Nate sat up straighter at her admission.  Was he not grateful to them?  Sure, he could be an ass sometimes.  Being the boss meant he had to be hard on them. 

“We’re here, you know.  For each other.  I’m not good with the words.  That’s Sophie’s thing.  You’re not good either.  Something we have in common.”

“Uh, yeah.  Words are sometimes difficult.”

“You’re telling me.  It’s like I want to tell you to quit dancing around Sophie like you do because hey, she’s not gonna wait forever for you to get your act together.  And I want to tell Hardison that I’m not some fragile wallflower, that I won’t break or something, that he can ask me out on a date.  I want to tell Eliot that he’s a good person, but he won’t believe me because he thinks that he’s broken. We all are broken.  I just want you to realize that we’ve got your back and to quit this keeping secrets thing. Just don’t do it again. OK?”

For someone who wasn’t good with words, she said a lot in one breath.  It was all a lot to sort through, him and Sophie, Hardison’s reluctance to be more forward, Eliot’s issues with his past.  And he thought he thinks too much?

Nate held up one of the broken crayons.

“We are all a little broken.  But the last time I checked, broken crayons still color the same.”

Nate closed his eyes, gripping the crayon tightly in his hand. 

“I thought I was too broken to fix.  I thought I’d never be able to have friends, be normal. Well, sort of normal. What’s normal anyway?  You fixed me.”

Nate opened his eyes, realizing that Parker was now right next to him, leaning up against his desk.  Her smile radiated warmth and something he’d never seen from her: gratitude.

“Well, I mean, it’s all duct taped and that glue that you used when you were a kid, and hey, it could come apart at any moment, but it’s there and fixed and I don’t want to lose you again.  So just start coloring or something.”

Sometimes Parker’s analogies made no sense to him, but this one possibly did.  She wanted to fix him, make him better.  What she didn’t realize though was she did make him better.  He was a better person knowing her, knowing the rest of the team.  His issues were still there and wouldn’t disappear if ever. 

“I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

“And don’t get shot again.”

Nate chuckled at the point she made.  His side still ached sometimes when he thought about it, even though it had been months since he had broken out of jail with the help of the others.

“Not planning on that either.”

“No planning behind our backs.”

“No.  I learned my lesson.”

“Did you?  Ha.”

“So no more sneaking around, planting broken crayons everywhere?”

“I guess not.  Give them back to me.”

Nate was a bit shocked that she wanted them back.

“You’ll have to find them first.”

The game was on.  He’d hide them for Parker to find, just like she’d placed them throughout his place.  When she had found the last one, she held it out for him to see, knowing exactly how many she had given him.  They were getting ready to travel to San Lorenzo to take down Moreau.

“Duct tape holding?” he asked as he carried his bag out the door.

“It’s been replaced by that super strong glue that you can’t get off your fingers if you tried.”

“Good.”

“You?”

“It’s barely holding.  It is though.”

He looked at her, noticing how happy she looked, even though the next con could be their last.

“I could loan you some of that super glue?”

“Duct tape is enough, for now.”

Hardison stared at them, not getting what they were talking about at all.

“I did not bring either one of those things in my bag.  Since I don’t know the plan, I hope you do,” Hardison answered.

“Let’s go steal a country,” Nate replied back, winking at Parker as he did.

 


End file.
